


Dean Winchester Is The Immigrant Kid

by ArchTroop



Series: Supernatural Meta [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester - Freeform, Gen, Meta, this is sadness on a plate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2020-11-07 15:25:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20819558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchTroop/pseuds/ArchTroop
Summary: There is a pattern, and I am familiar with it.





	Dean Winchester Is The Immigrant Kid

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from my tumblr

Some time ago, and with all the father’s day posts going around, I thought to myself about the “Dean Winchester parenting” moments.  
Three specifically come to mind:

1\. After School Special - he asks Sam if he’s got his butterfly-knife to school with him.  
2\. The Kids Are Alright - When he teaches Ben how to kick some nuts and get his things back  
3\. Angel Heart - Dean landing Claire a gun, and later giving her the lore book and NOT taking away the sword she decides to keep.

Now, we all can agree the as a hunter - his instincts are true to the situation and so on. But giving some further thought - a butterfly-knife at school? Nothing about a hunt here. Just rough self-preservation. Ben vs. bullies? Also, nothing supernatural about it, Claire is the exceptional - but the way he hands her the gun isn’t rubbing me the “hunter-ish” way at all.

My point is, that Dean’s childhood after the fire was HELL, and it all stems from there. And it made me ponder over some unpleasant thoughts.

Just think about it this way: First 2 years or so he probably traveled with John and baby Sammy, without any communication with children his age. I doubt that John would have sent him to kindergarten. That is a massive stunt in a kid’s social abilities, imho. His only company were his confused father and a baby, who doesn't even speak.   
His only source of outer information and stimuli were the radio and the TV.   
From an early age, his world of references and cultural immediate heritage were built upon random collection of TV shows, that weren’t even parent-proofed or filtered for him (again, imho). 

Later, when he started school, lets say at the age of 6 or so, he was the new kid in town. And forever he will be the new kid. We saw Sam complain about it, but just think: Sam had Dean to vent to. Dean had no one. 2 years old baby is not that kind of friendship he needed then.  
Furthermore - being isolated for 2 years now, he probably developed his own way of speech, references, favorite games (which were probably verbal games or imaginary, rather then actual OBJECTS). He literally TALKS a different language.

Think about it, he comes to school everyday, with this big great smile, wanting to play with all the other kids, but being shun for his awkwardness/strangeness/otherness. Until they move again, and it all starts anew.  
And Dean is such a boy, I imagine, who EVERY TIME thinks that “this time they will accept me and I’ll play with them, EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY”, and every time he is crushed. And then they move again. Until one day, his optimism fades, and he becomes this sarcastic, somewhat cold individual that is presented years later in After School Special. 

Every day of his elementary school ended with him back at “home” with John and Sammy, who is still not a compatible playmate (2-6, or up to 8 years of age).   
So TV it is. 

He probably talked to himself a lot - much more then a usual kid his age, and well into his teen life as well. He would sing to songs without someone to join him, just to himself. He would talk to objects. He would be able to make up a mile long story about a screw and a stone just to entertain himself.

He was probably picked on a lot - “girly-looking”, the outsider, “freak”.  
I imagine he learned how to defend himself even before John started on his marine training routine (hence the opening paragraph).

At some point he would drop any scholar effort and become the trouble maker, develop the uncaring attitude, the “bad-boy” thing. He would skip class, barely finishing the year. He probably tried to smoke (I cannot accept the idea that he didn’t smoke/smokes in the canon. This is ridiculous). Messed with the fallout crowd of the school children if they stayed long enough in town. And when the school bell rang - he would be out of there immediately.

People tend to point out how much he had to care for Sammy as a negative thing and the greatest neglect by John, but the fact is that this is what saved Dean’s sanity - the only living soul in his rather claustrophobic existence, was Sam.

I imagine that little Dean was so frustrated at the fact that Sam is too small to talk, he probably tried to teach him words and sentences when Sam was too young for it. Also, reading and writing. That would actually explain a lot about Sam - he displays qualities that are found in children who were schooled earlier as gifted individuals by overzealous parents (again, imho, and taking in account personal witnessing).

Dean was a miserable child by social standards: Moving from place to place, always the weird one with the weird jokes and references. The kid that nobody actually gets. Later - the bad influence.   
The kid who hums to himself, who draws weird pictures at class. Who tells stories nobody can trace their origins. 

And he knew it. He hates their pity. For him - everything is gonna be OK. Because among all that chaos and fake smiles and the chatter behind his back, he knew what waits for him at “home”, where he belongs: His two only constant toys: The TV and his baby brother.


End file.
